I must say, that my inclination, which I'm keeping in check right now, is to pull out my sarcasm and irony swords and have a go. But, I know that you'll just delete me and I had an awfully damn hard time recuperating from the last deletion. I have never been deleted before and I must say that it is a unique experience. Why I actually had to go to a new clinic for cyberpsychic treatment to get some help understanding what the experience of deletion is, what it means, and how I might adjust to life after experiencing such trauma. The shrink there comforted me by noting that I've probably been deleted many, many times. It's just that no one ever actually *told* me about it. :-)
All joking aside, though, Henry I was hoping that you'd take my first reply to you seriously. I'm really quite serious here. You found what I typed to Frances offensive, if not oppressive and, indeed, felt that you could speak for the entire list as similarly experiencing oppression. I would be curious as to precisely how you found what I typed offensive, how it was lacking an intellectual foundation, in what sense it was 'private' verbal fencing, and, following Frances, what constitutes oppression. No, rest assured, I'm not being argumentative. Just very curious. These list dynamics always just fascinate me, you see.
To be honest, your attempt at publically humiliating me had little to do with my shift in posting styles. I think it is quite okay to be both serious and humorous in these exchanges. And my reply to Frances was just that. In fact, I took you seriously and never thought you'd read another post from 'K' again, so exactly why would that matter?
Furthermore, it seems to me that your intervention was itself a bit of private verbal fencing, no? That is, attempting to silence your interlocuter by publically stating that you will be ignoring them ('you are deleted') is a flame, is it not? It was especially interesting to me that your decision to delete came after a very serious and intellectually-grounded response on my part: 1] Who decides what is appropriate, substantively, to discussion and what are the theoretical criteria for that decision? 2] Who decides what is stylistically appropriate and what are the theoretical criteria? 3] Are there really ever any exchanges that aren't intellectually grounded?
In any event, I think the pretense that polite discourse is somehow preferable and superior to flames and the use of irony, sarcasm, humor is seriously misguided. If you are an academic, then surely you must know that the pretense of politeness nearly always obfuscates and normalizes intellectual discourse that can be rancorous, aggressive, and motivated by the desire to humiliate others in the extreme.
SnitgrrRl